Before we start if you'd like to make a one-time donation to support my work
you can donate via the Super Thanks function on Youtube on any of my videos.
Just click the three dots under this video and then click the heart that says 'thanks'
to donate the desired amount. Thank you to those who have already donated and a huge
thanks to my monthly Patrons who make my work possible. Now on to the video.
*romantic upbeat guitar music plays - music is in the description*
When you google "I hate gym reddit" about 11,100,000 results come up with titles such as
"i [ __ ] hate jim", "the more i watch the office the more i hate jim", and "why do people hate jim
so much?" When you google the same phrase but change Jim's name with Pam's name about 1
million 260 thousand results come up with very similar titles, but more are questions as to why people
hate Pam rather than rand simply talking about why they dislike her character. Lastly when you
search the same phrase but change the name to Dwight's only around 418,000 results come up.
Additionally the top posts complaining about Dwight were written in 2019 or before whereas
with Jim and Pam the posts have been written more recently around 2021. When you search the simple
phrase Jim The Office on YouTube, videos talking about Jim's downfall come up, as well as videos
talking about why people hate his wife Pam. When you search Dwight The Office on YouTube, videos
about the character's genius come up. This is all to say that in any television series characters
are going to be disliked and downright hated, but that out of the main cast of characters Jim and
Pam, the audience surrogates, seem to be the most hated, especially in recent years where fans of the
show are reevaluating it almost a decade after it ended in 2013. I included Dwight as a contrasting
character because Dwight is another character where supposed to like and feel sympathy towards
much like Jim and Pam, whereas with Michael he's supposed to be highly unlikable. And people seem
to really like Dwight upon re-watches and he is one of if not the funniest characters on the show
at least in my opinion. He gets a lot of praise nowadays despite his dubious character background
as a son of Nazi war criminals as well as his history of essentially being a volunteer cop.
But all of that seems to get a pass whereas with Jim and Pam fans tend to be a lot harsher on them
especially in recent years. One reason for this that one redditor pointed out is because
Jim and to an extent Pam are written to be nice people. They're who the audience is supposed to
root for and identify with. They're supposed to be if nothing else likeable in a world
of unlikable people, and thus fans tend to be more critical of their behavior when they do
something that's not nice, like playing pranks on Dwight or being hyper critical of others without
reflecting on their own flaws and shortcomings. And though I do agree with that take and think
that is the main reason why people tend to judge Jim more than Dwight, who pretends to
call immigration on migrant workers in order not to pay them, I don't think that's the whole story
when it comes to Pam. I think the main reason why people don't like Pam is because her story
doesn't narratively satisfy us as viewers who are used to seeing characters achieve their dreams
and have some sort of big happy ending. That's not to say that Pam's ending isn't happy, but it's
not what we as an audience expect, even though the writing's on the wall. How many times is it pointed
out to us that Pam doesn't really follow through on things, that she doesn't take enough chances.
And though her character does achieve some growth like telling her co-workers, mainly Jim, about how
she feels about them at the fire pit, most of the choices and chances she takes are made in vain -
so much so that she has to create a fake job for herself just to stay employed and that her resume
is the size of a post-it note. When I first watched the show I was expecting that she would finally
get her house with the terrace that she described in season two, but that never happens. Pam: I'm not gonna
try to get a house like that um they don't even make houses like that in Scranton.
So I'm never gonna... Her big finale is painting the mural in the warehouse something that's just
brought up in the last season. And sure it fits in with her art goals that were established at the
beginning, but as an audience we expected her to do more because that's what's supposed to happen
right? Why didn't she turn her love for art into a lucrative career? Monetize your passion Pam! That
doesn't mean that Pam's character is bad as the point of her character is to be more realistic
and have an open-ended ending, but that does make a lot of people dislike her, including me if I'm
being honest. I've watched The Office at least four times since 2020 and I don't like Jim and
Pam and I find Dwight and Michael's relationship a lot more compelling upon re-watches. So now that
we've dissected why people are more harsh on Jim and Pam it's time to ask the question - Is the hate
deserved? Well that depends on what specifically you're talking about when it comes to Jim and
Pam's characters. So let's dive into the main gripes with everyone's favorite couple PB&J.
*upbeat romantic guitar music plays - music is in the description*
So let's start with Jim. And note that I won't be talking about all the gripes people have with
these characters, just the main ones I've seen come up time and time again. Also these are just
my opinions, if you happen to disagree feel free to let me know down below and let's get started.
The first reason why people tend not to like Jim is because they see him as a bully and a coward.
Jim puts Dwight's things in jello, goes out of his way to dress up as him, and even goes
as far as to climb a telephone pole to just see Dwight's squirm. Bullying Dwight is entertainment
to him and he does this because he's bored at his job. He finds his work meaningless
and the only enjoyment he gets out of his day is pushing Dwight's buttons and hanging out at
reception. Sometimes the bullying is warranted like when he calls Jim's daughter pee pee when
he knows her name is Cece and for shredding paper when he's on an important sales call,
actually trying to do his job. But most of the time Jim bullies Dwight simply because he can.
And Jim doesn't bully Dwight for things that are actually awful. For example his uncle is
alluded to be a former Nazi who's still "puttering down in Argentina". When Dwight tried to visit him
it was protested by the Shoah Foundation. Instead Jim pulls pranks on Dwight because he finds Dwight
annoying. The point to all this is to show that Jim is an underachiever and thus his character
arc can only be completed once he starts doing something he's passionate about which he does. Does
that justify what Jim does to Dwight? Honestly I don't know, but I do find Jim's pranks to be
funny at times, but other times they tend to take you out of the moment because you're just like
really Jim? You climbed the telephone pole just to see Dwight climb a telephone pole?
In the end Dwight's evil deeds are also mitigated by his gullible demeanor and childlike qualities
that balance out his more dubious character traits, whereas Jim's pranks are just taken at
point blank because he's a nice guy, so why isn't he being nice? But is Jim too nice? This leads us to
the second biggest gripe people have with Jim and that is his love for Pam manifests in creepy ways.
And this I do agree with. For example the freaking teapot gets me every time. He literally admits he
held onto a hot sauce packet Pam thought was ketchup for like two years and at this point I
don't even know if the writers intended that to come off as really weird or as romantic. He also
is a doer of big romantic gestures. For example he buys his parents home for Pam without telling her
and she just has to be okay with it. He also invests ten thousand dollars into startup company
Athlead and decides to move the family to Philly without telling her. And to be fair she never
complained about his big romantic gestures before and also invested in WUPHF, but that was more of a
joke than a big life decision. But she probably never complained about the gestures because
what's she going to do? Tell jim to resell the house after he already took out a mortgage on it?
Big romantic gestures either in public or private tend to put people on the spot and make it hard
to decline what's being offered because you don't want to embarrass the other person. So I do think
that Pam's anger was warranted later on when Jim kept going behind her back and I think that's the
overall consensus today. But I think at the time a lot of people found Pam to be ungrateful and that
was definitely fueled by early 2010 sexism towards the character. The last point about Jim's character
that people don't like or at least that I really don't like is how he treated Karen. Pam gets a lot
of [ __ ] for "leading Roy on", which we'll talk about soon, but Jim leads Karen on for almost
an entire season when it's clear that he doesn't really like her and that they don't have things in
common. It's even alluded to that Karen is Jim's rebound from Pam but he fails to realize that
which of course is realistic, but Karen deserved so much better. The way Jim treats her annoys me
so much when he's supposed to again be a nice guy, but in the end he's anything but.
*upbeat romantic guitar music plays - music is in the description*
Like the section with Jim, I won't be detailing all the reasons why people dislike this character, I'll
just be talking about a few and if you disagree with me let me know down in the comments below. I
think the main reason why people get annoyed with Pam is because she doesn't accomplish anything art
or career-wise. Michael even points out she doesn't follow through on things, and in the end she really
doesn't follow through on anything when it comes to her job, but when it comes to her personal life
she does accomplish what she wants to do which is to be with Jim, her best friend and to stand
up for herself more. She also does art in her free time as a hobby, for example she made an entire
comic book for Jim. In the end Pam doesn't have a dream job and just wants to make enough money to
have a comfortable life with her loved ones and I think that's realistic and also speaks to a lot of
people, but it's hard to admit that you don't have career ambitions because then people see you as a
loser much like how people see Pam. She doesn't graduate art school, she doesn't make it as a
salesperson, and seems to get so many chances to do something with her life but doesn't take them and
that's frustrating to watch, but again realistic. And in the end she does decide to take the plunge
and get out of her comfort zone to be with Jim and to stay together as a family and sells the house
as her big romantic gesture for Jim. The last point I want to touch on when it comes to Pam is that
people tend to be really angry with how she flirts with Jim when she's with roy and how she leads Jim
on. I do agree that Pam flirts with Jim and does lead him on into thinking that she might leave Roy
when she's clearly not ready to, and again that's my interpretation of the events in the series feel
free to disagree with me. She does admit to Jim that him misinterpreting things was her fault
and then he snaps back with "I'm sorry I misinterpreted our friendship", which is
a really snarky thing to say. I do think that Pam comes out looking worse because we're seeing most
of this from Jim's perspective and Jim is clearly just waiting for Pam to finally be done with Roy
which puts unfair expectations on her. But clearly Pam isn't ready to leave Roy just because she also
has feelings for Jim and that's okay. I think she's seen by a lot of fans as being quote
unquote "stupid" for not realizing Roy is a bad guy and not dumping him once she meets Jim, but I
think she does realize the position she's in, she's just afraid to take the risk because part of her
character in the beginning is that she's afraid to make her own choices and take chances. As Jim
says to her, you gotta take a chance on something sometime, and in the end she does and gets her
happy ending - even if it's not what we expect, it's what fits her character and that's okay.
*upbeat romantic guitar music plays - music is in the description*
In the end the two main reasons why people tend to dislike this couple the most
is because one they're supposed to be nice and when they're not nice we judge them
for it more than the other characters who are supposed to be mean and unlikable on the show
and two because Pam specifically doesn't fulfill the usual satisfying character arc.
And honestly Jim and Pam are far from my favorite characters in the series.
I find them really annoying on re-watches especially Pam, sorry not sorry, but I also
see the merit of her character and storyline. I think what grates on me even more than Pam
is Jim's treatment of Karen and how he only uses her as a tool to try to get over Pam. So that's it
for this one. Let me know what you thought down below and I'll see you all in the next one bye :)
*upbeat romantic guitar music plays - music is in the description*